An Idiot In The Kitchen

    I consider myself a pretty smart girl.  Not a genius by any means, but I have a good head on my shoulders.  Of course someone in high school once told me their sister said my head was small in proportion to the rest of my body and since that moment I have always been self conscious of my seemingly small head and how it looks against the rest of my body especially when my hair is slicked back into a pony tail.  Teenagers are cruel.  Forget my small head.  Back to my large brain!  I made good grades throughout school.  I graduated third in my class.  I made a 4.0 in college.  (My college career consisted of one class, but I got an A so that's a 4.0 thank you very much!)  I successfully ran a small business for 11 months.  I'm no idiot!  Except when I enter a kitchen.  My brain seems to totally disappear whenever I come within 6 feet of a stove.  Or measuring cups.  Or measuring spoons.  Or crock pots.  But I'm great with a fridge or dishwasher!  Sometimes my brain will even disappear when I'm making my grocery list.  For example, yesterday I made red beans, sausage, and rice.  It was on my list to make this week.  I had gone to the grocery store Friday and gotten all the ingredients, except THE RICE!  Rice is in the title of the entree and yet I still managed to forget it.  And I didn't realize I forgot it until it was almost time to cook it.  Oh well, nothing a quick trip to WalMart with two extremely whiny and cranky children can't fix.  There were tears and gnashing of teeth but I managed to keep them alive until we got back to the car.  And we got brownies.  So it was all good!  Cooking eggs is always a nightmare.  If everyone's life depended on me being able to successfully fry an egg, then I hate to say it, but we'd all be dead.  I've tried for years.  I can't do it.  In the event our lives depend on it then please choose someone else to save us.  I also think I develop dyslexia when reading recipes.  I constantly confuse one ingredients measurement for another.   Especially when making oatmeal.  You'd think I would have learned by now, but it's the dyslexia's fault.  Have you ever tried to cook 1 & 3/4 cup of dry oatmeal in 1 cup of water?  It. Don't. Work.  Now 1 cup of dry oatmeal in 1 & 3/4 cup of water works!  Which is why they print those directions on the side of the oatmeal container that I can't read because I develop "kitchen dyslexia."   
    In closing, I believe this is all my own fault.  For years I teased my mother for her lack of culinary skills.  She cooks well enough.  She kept our bellies full for umpteen years.  I always asked her "How can you do exactly what the recipe calls for and it still doesn't come out right?  Geez!"  Well, I still don't know the answer to that question, but it's one I ask myself almost every time I finish cooking something.  Punishment from God for questioning my mother?  Why yes.  I believe it is.

Humbly,
The Kitchen Dyslexic